Since the introduction into the marketplace of substitutes for natural fruit juices and the like, the art has long been faced with the problem of producing beverages which have the appearance, appeal, taste and mouthfeel of the natural fruit juices. The consumer appeal of natural juices having a cloudy appearance and pulpy mouthfeel has been difficult to achieve in the substitute products.
A wide variety of clouding agents have been previously suggested for imparting to beverages the opacity and palatability of freshly-squeezed fruit juices. Generally, these clouding agents comprise fats, oils or gums which are emulsifiable or dispersible in aqueous acidic media to provide a product having the opaque or cloudy appearance of natural fruit juices.
For example, U.S. Pat. No. 3,395,021 provides a clouding agent comprising a dispersion of a gum that is water-swellable in an aqueous medium containing a gum which is soluble in water. The degree of swelling of the water-swellable gum and the pulpiness of the resulting mixture is controlled by the water-soluble gum.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,023,106 relates to a clouding agent comprising a dried emulsion of a "plastic fat" and a hydrophilic encapsulating colloidal material such as water-soluble gum. The "plastic fat" contemplated by the disclosure is one that is semi-solid at room temperature, i.e., comprises a mixture of fats and oils at temperatures in the order of 60.degree. F.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,715,216 describes an aqueous fruit beverage composition with a clouding agent composed of a fat and edible gum. The patent discloses that suitable fats are vegetable fats such as hydrogenated peanut oil.
The stability of the cloud-forming agent is critically important to the commercial acceptability of the product. The cloud should be one which will avoid settling out as a sediment or rising to the top of the beverage to form a ring. The present commercial clouds for ready-to-drink beverages generally separate out to form a ring or layer on the surface of the juice product. Accordingly, it has become standard practice to include "weighting agents" in the cloud to impart thereto the necessary stability to avoid ringing upon long periods of standing.
Until recently, the weighting of clouds for use in artificial juice products was achieved by employing brominated vegetable oils. The combination of the brominated vegetable oil and cloud yielded an agent which had the requisite specific gravity to impart stability to the cloud.
Studies, however, revealed that long-term exposure of living tissue to brominated vegetable oils resulted in an absorption of bromine therein. These toxicological studies have resulted in regulations which restrict the use of brominated vegetable oils. Other artificial weighting agents are allowed at only low levels, which can stabilize only a low level of clouding fats, resulting in a watery appearance and thin, watery mouthfeel.
Moreover, recent trends in the area of food substitutes toward only the utilization of natural ingredients has led the art on an extensive search for a natural clouding agent which does not require the use of "weighting agents" to impart stability thereto.
For citrus flavored beverages, particularly orange drinks containing juice solids, opacity can be obtained by addition of water extracted soluble orange solids which contain high levels of suspended pulp. The use of these materials is accompanied by fairly rapid sedimentation and the presence of objectionable flavor problems which limit the level of these materials and thus the degree of opacity achievable.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a natural clouding agent for incorporation in a ready-to-drink beverage mix which imparts the appearance, opacity, texture and mouthfeel thereto of a natural juice product and which would remain physically stable without the necessity for a "weighting agent."